


Sometimes

by gwendee



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Child Neglect, Divorce, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Karma and Gakushuu are brothers, On BOTH SIDES, Siblings, implied infidelity, terrible parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 05:52:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendee/pseuds/gwendee
Summary: A short exploration on the concept that Karma and Gakushuu are siblings. Takes place mostly at the end of canon, shortly before and after Korosensei's death.





	Sometimes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey you guys! So I read a fic series (Families shatter like glass by LoserxLoser) where Karma and Gakushuu are siblings and I fell in love, and inspiration slapped me across the face so I had to write this instead IMMEDIATELY of working on my next update of Twice. You should definitely check the fic out!

Karma’s elated when he looks at the piece of paper in his hands and sees the ranking: 1st. He smirks self-satisfyingly and is about to pull out his phone to show that pompous asshole who’s the smartest between them, but the realization of what’s about to happen shocks Karma out of his momentary thrill of victory.

Karma stands up so fast his chair clatters to the group, drawing everyone’s gazes. “I have to go.”

Terasaka snatches the piece of paper on Karma’s desk. “Hey, 1st! You beat Asano!”

“I have to go,” Karma says again, with more urgency in his voice. He ignores his classmate’s confusion and Korosensei’s flailing tentacles, dashing down the hill and towards the main building.

Karma bursts in through 3-A’s classroom door just in time to see Asano Gakuhou smack his son and send him flying across the classroom.

“You psycho!” Karma yells.

Gakuhou’s gaze snaps towards him, as does the rest of 3-A. Gakushuu looks up with wide eyes, a hand pressed to his bloodied cheek.

Karma glares.

“...Akabane,” Gakuhou greets, abielt hesitantly.

Karma ignores the weird way Gakuhou says his last name. Gakushuu wavers a little as he gets up, and his classmates (looking between the trio in uncertainty) part smoothly to let Karma get to Gakushuu’s side.

“Head hurts,” Gakushuu whispers. He winces when Karma presses his hands against the sides of his face. Karma whips around to glare at Gakuhou again, then all but drags Gakushuu out of the classroom and towards where he thinks the nurse’s office is.

“You okay?” Karma asks, voice low, when they’re sitting across each other on the white bed in the medical bay, legs tangled.

“Fine,” Gakushuu sighs, “What made you rush over? I could’ve handled it.”

Karma’s filled with a righteous anger. “He slapped you,” he says, “he hit you in front of your entire class. He-”

“-doesn’t usually do that,” Gakushuu laughs wryly, “did you see his face? He looked like he was shorting out. It was kind of funny.”

“Funny?” Karma groans in frustration, “god, you’re so fucking- Funny? I don’t, oh my god.” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Doesn’t usually? That better be the only time he hit you.”

“Only time,” Gakushuu reassures.

“I came when I realized I beat you, which means you lost,” Karma says, “he never took losing well. I didn’t know what he’d do.”

“He didn’t do anything,” Gakushuu says.

Karma stares pointedly at the bandage now plastered over Gakushuu’s cheek, and raises an unamused eyebrow.

Gakushuu has the gall to huff out a laugh. “He usually never does anything. We normally just yell at each other until he gets it out of his system. Not in public, and he never, ever, hits me - well, except today, I guess.”

“I hate your side of the family,” Karma mutters. He crosses his arms.

Gakushuu smiles at that. “Neither of us got the good side of the family,” he points out.

“I haven’t seen mom and her husband in 5 months,” Karma says.

“And I’ve seen dad every day but we’re nowhere closer,” Gakushuu grins.

Karma bumps their knees together. “Sleepover?”

Gakushuu’s eyes twinkle. “Yours or mine?”

“Someone will die if I go to yours,” Karma says lightly, but his tone is laced with a hidden threat. Gakushuu shoots him a warning look.

\--

The split had been messy for both of them.

Hanako and Gakuhou hadn’t been close for a long time, barely living in the same house, flitting in and out whenever they so wished just to greet their children at different times.

“He looks so much like you,” Hanako had said, patting Gakushuu’s hair in an aloof manner, “I don’t want him.”

“You take the other boy then,” Gakuhou says from the couch, barely looking up from his phone, “he’s such a troublemaker like his mother.”

Hanako had thrown a glass. “Don’t turn your son into a fucking slave.”

Gakuhou catches the glass. “Don’t turn yours into a whore.”

Gakushuu had cried when Karma’s taken from him, “mom! Karma!” he screams.

“Don’t call me mom,” Hanako had said, the same time Gakuhou says “stop crying, brat,” and Karma stares with wide eyes and watches his mother pinch Gakushuu’s cheeks way too hard before bundling him out the door.

The divorce is settled out of court, Hanako marries Hiro in the next 6 months, and Gakushuu and Gakuhou don’t go to the wedding.

Gakushuu is 7 when he goes missing for a whole day, Gakuhou finds him playing with Karma in Akabane’s yard a whole neighborhood away and gets into a screaming match with Hanako, “you left your 7 year old son alone for a whole day!” “Well you fucking lost yours!” while Hiro cleans the boys up. Gakuhou is crying silently when he takes Gakushuu home, kissing his forehead and telling him not to run off like that. Hanako screams and throws something at Karma, it narrowly misses his head and Hiro yells at her to sleep it off, and wipes Karma’s tears away.  

They’re 10 when Karma shows up on Gakushuu’s doorstep. They play eavesdropper to Gakuhou’s one sided conversation on the phone, “the fuck you mean you’re not in Japan right now?” “Oh his /nanny/ is /supposed/ to be here, huh?” “He’s 10, Hanako.” “I didn’t fucking kidnap him, he walked over by- ok you know what? He’s staying over until you get back. No I’m not handing him over to his nanny. Don’t /you/ dare talk to be about negligent parenting.”

Gakuhou buys them both smartphones so they can keep in contact. Karma’s changed phones multiple times since then but he’s still on the Asano’s phone plan because his mother had rolled her eyes and said “that man always had too much money to waste anyways.”

Karma doesn’t have many memories of his father, but he has watched him for years through Gakushuu’s eyes. Karma resents the man who turned his brother into a sad, bitter individual, from someone who once held the stars in their eyes into the scared boy who wipes his tears with split palms and scraped knuckles.

Hiro tried to be a father, he really did, and Karma appreciates it. But Hanako had been too flippant a parent for Karma to feel connected to her and thus Hiro. Gakushuu addresses her as Hanako, sometimes Akabane, he hadn’t called her mom since she walked out of his life when they were 5 and neither of them looked back.

Gakuhou had been an estranged uncle to Karma, at best. But Gakushuu truly saw that man as his father, as dysfunctional as their relationship may be. Karma supposed Gakuhou was always present as a father figure, and showed his support in twisted but solid ways that Gakushuu grew to appreciate but Karma thought was unspeakably cruel.

But he supposes, in the end, a hapless parent was better than none at all.

\--

The final hours are ticking down, they're running up the hill and taking down the swat team one by one and this close to reaching Korosensei, and Karma hops up onto a tree and the device in his pocket buzzes.

Karma discreetly checks his phone, a stupid move considering he was supposed to be in hiding, but Gakushuu’s name was blinking urgently on the caller ID screen. Karma declines the call and quickly taps out a “what?”

“You’re /there/ now,” comes the reply.

Karma purses his lips. “I am.”

“On the way.”

Karma’s blood runs cold. “You can’t.”

“You’re not doing this alone, Karma.”

“My class is with me.”

“You’re NOT doing this alone, Karma.”

Karma takes a deep shuddering breath. He and Gakushuu had the same stubborn streak both their parents had, doubled. “The government is not your friend. They’ll shoot on sight.”

“I know this place better than them,” Gakushuu replies, then goes offline.

Karma grits his teeth. He tunes into his com and hisses, “there’s no time to explain, Asano’s coming and he’s on our side. Do not engage.”

The class erupts into a flurry of angry whispers, until Isogai shushes everyone. There’s a whole lot of explanations to be given, he knows later, to both his class and Gakushuu, but there are more pressing matters at hand.

Later, Karma spies someone with strawberry blond hair crouching behind the classroom building and there’s no time to waste, they’re firing rubber bullets at Reaper and cradling Kayano’s body, they’re running and screaming and Nagisa deals the final blow, then they’re crying, crying, crying-

“Karma!” Asano says. He drops a gun as he steps out.

“What the fuck?” Irina yelps. Karasuma turns around with a gun held up, but he lowers it upon seeing who the intruder was. The classmates look up, confusion visible along with the heartbreak. Karma staggers up and runs into Gakushuu’s arms.

“F-fuck, Gakushuu, I-”

“Shh,” Gakushuu says, pressing a kiss to Karma’s forehead. Karma lets himself sink into his arms, shaking slightly. Gakushuu tucks Karma’s head under his chin and pats his hair.

“A-are you guys dating?!” Someone, Karma thinks it’s Nakamura, yells out. The rest of his class responds with equally shocked and skeptical exclamations.

Gakushuu tightens his arms around Karma. “We’re twins, idiot!” He snaps.

Karma laughs wetly. He doesn’t have to look up to know how red Gakushuu’s face is, he owns a mirror at home and knows what he looks like when he’s blushing.

“...That makes sense,” someone else says.

“Where did you get that gun?” Karasuma demands, but he doesn’t sound angry.

“I knocked someone out,” Gakushuu says casually, but Karma hears the smugness underneath. He laughs again, and Gakushuu buries his grin in his hair.

When they part, Gakushuu whips out his phone. “I have to call dad,” he says a little sheepishly, “I ran out of the house.”

“He’s probably pissed as fuck,” Karma says. He reaches out to touch the fading bruise on Gakushuu’s face.

Gakushuu carries a soft conversation on his side but Karma hears Gakuhou’s agitated voice on the other end, loud enough that Karma can make most of the words out. He leans forward and says into the receiver, “I’m here, dad,” and hears Gakuhou pause.

Then Gakuhou says, relief in his voice, “I’m glad both of you are alright.”

Gakushuu talks to him for a few moments longer, then bids his farewell and gets escorted by Irina down to the government base, while Karma and the rest of 3-E gets ushered into their classroom where they collapse.

The next morning is another new flurry of activity, and Karma’s exhausted. They all are. Gakushuu and his group of friends-minions-entourage wordlessly escorts 3-E to their bus that’s supposed to be bringing them to the government base to get questioned or scolded, probably both. Gakushuu gives Karma a raised eyebrow and a wave of a hand which Karma takes to mean good luck. On the bus he’s assaulted with questions, everyone’s curiosity overtaking their tiredness.

“Our parents split when we were kids,” he shrugs, “I went off with my mom and she remarried someone called Akabane. Gakushuu stayed an Asano.”

“So you two aren’t enemies?”

“No,” Karma says, “I mean, we’re rivals, academic and otherwise. But we’re family.”

\--

“Did I fucking marry a stranger?” Hanako had yelled, “I don’t know you anymore! The kids don’t know you anymore!”

“Is that why you got some other man to warm your bed?” Gakuhou hissed, “business trip my ass-”

“Nothing happened between us,” Hanako says, “you-”

“Are the whelps even fucking mine?”

“Are you blind? That brat looks exactly like you!”

“Oh, so /one/ of them-”

“They popped out of me the exact same time! And you call yourself a teacher, you turned fucking psycho after that kid offed himself-”

“Shut up!”

Karma runs out, latches onto his mother’s leg. “Stop fighting!”

Hanako looks down, lowers the book in her hands she had poised to throw. “Baby-”

Gakushuu steps out from the corner he was hiding behind with Karma. “Mom, dad?”

Hanako’s face twists into something of a sneer. “I hope that kid turns out nothing like you.”

Gakushuu steps back alarmed, eyes wide. “Mom?”

Hanako whips around to glare at Gakuhou. “I don’t want to be associated with the likes of you.” She storms out of the room and Gakuhou goes after her.

Gakushuu touches his face, and tears start welling up at his eyes. Karma’s by his side in an instant.

“Mom doesn’t like me because I look too much like dad?” Gakushuu says.

“That’s not true,” Karma argues.

“They’re going to leave.”

“No they’re not!”

“I don’t want us to stop being friends,” Gakushuu sniffles.

“We won’t be,” Karma insists.

Hanako walks back into the room. She stares at the boys hugging with a strange expression on her face.

“Mom?” Gakushuu says.

She lets out a pained huff, reaches down to ruffle his hair, then Karma’s.

“Are you and dad leaving?” Gakushuu cries.

“They’re not!” Karma yells, again.

“I-” Hanako hesitates, “doesn’t matter.”

“Mom!” Karma cries. Hanako pulls him apart from Gakushuu's embrace and holds them both out at arms length. Gakushuu flinches away when she scowls at him, but the grip on his arm stays tight.

“Doesn’t matter how much you look like him,” she narrows her eyes at Gakushuu, “he’ll never love you as much as that dead-”

“Hanako!” Gakuhou bellows from a floor down.

“Shut up, asshole!” She yells back. Turns back to Karma, says, “we’re leaving.” Stands and pulls Karma forward.

Karma wrenches his hand back. “What about bro?”

Hanako scoffs. “Fine, stay with him, see if I care.”

Karma’s eyes widen. “Wait, mom-” He reaches forward but she waves him away, and is out of the room in an instant.

Gakushuu starts crying. Karma watches his mother leave, confused and scared, stares at the half-moon indents her nails left in Gakushuu’s arm.

She returns a day later, resumes a shouting match with Gakuhou and throws half her belongings into a luggage. Two weeks after that Karma moves out of the Asano household.

\--

Karma finds himself at Asano’s doorstep. The bus home goes round to everyone’s houses to drop them off, and Karma privately requests to be let off at his father’s place. Gakushuu greets him at the the gates.

Gakuhou is in the living room. “Karma,” he says.

“Hey,” Karma says. Gakuhou gives him a concerned look, and he waves it off, but Gakushuu manhandles him up the stairs and into the bathroom. The adrenaline of being questioned twenty times over is ebbing away and Karma feels as exhausted as he did yesterday. He barely remembers showering and changing but he wakes up 18 hours later in Gakushuu’s bed, his twin absently patting his hair while typing on his laptop.

Gakushuu barely glances up. “Hanako called couple of times,” he says, “must’ve heard the news. Told her you’ll call her back when you woke up.”

Karma rubs his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost dinner,” Gakushuu says. “A day later. You slept for 18 hours. Call her and come down.” He shuts his laptop and ambles downstairs.

Karma stretches. He dials Hanako’s number, and it connects to somewhere over Europe, and his mother’s shrill voice answers. “Is my son awake yet, you little brat-”

Karma winces. “Mom, it’s me.”

“Baby,” her voices smooths out, “Karma are you ok?”

“Don’t call my brother a brat.”

“Sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all. “Are you at that man’s house now?”

“I’m at dad’s house,” Karma answers back, just to piss her off.

“Uh huh,” she says. “Well /your father/ and I are flying back immediately to make sure you’re okay.”

Karma frowns. “You don’t need to do that.”

“Absolutely not, of course we’re coming back when you need us, we’re great parents,” Hanako says in a tone that this wasn’t just about Karma’s welfare. “See you in two days, sweetie.”

Dinner is less awkward than Karma expected, it seemed that whatever tension between the Asanos have had dissipated in light of Korosensei or an unknown conversation Gakushuu and Gakuhou had when Karma was passed out. Karma finds himself relaxing, smiling as they snark over the dinner table.

“So, Karma,” dad starts, “congratulations on achieving first for finals this year.”

Gakushuu groans.

Karma feels a smirk growing on his face. He thinks he looks like Gakuhou when he does, which is a weird thought to have. “Thank you. I took great pleasure in thrashing your son in finals.”

“Hypocritical bitch,” Gakushuu rolls his eyes.

“What a shame,” Gakuhou sighs dramatically, “if only my own flesh and blood graduated valedictorian of my own school.”

Karma snickers.

“I’m still goddamn valedictorian,” Gakushuu throws his hands up in exasperation. "One fucking exam doesn't mean shit."

“Show some sportsmanship, brother dearest,” Karma grins. Dodges the fork that Gakushuu throws at his head.

“No horseplay at the dinner table, kids,” Gakuhou says, amused.

Karma laughs again then, but something in his heart pangs. “I wish,” he starts. Stops.

Gakuhou and Gakushuu fall silent. “Karma?” Gakushuu prods.

“I wish we could have had this,” Karma blurts out. He bites his lip.

Gakushuu wordlessly gets up. He rounds the table and tugs Karma from his chair, and hugs him.

Karma lets himself go boneless against his brother. They sink to the floor, Karma’s face buried in the crook of Gakushuu’s neck, the latter squeezing him tight. There’s a shuffle to the side and another pair of arms wrap around them.

Gakushuu and Karma adjust so they let Gakuhou get closer. “Dad,” Karma chokes out.

Gakuhou says nothing. He pulls the kids onto his lap and there they are, fragments of a family of three, sitting by the dining table on the floor.

Karma thinks, briefly, what if.

\--

One and a half days later there’s banging on the front door of the Asano household. Gakushuu exchanges a look with Karma, and he goes up to open it.

Hanako bursts in, Hiro trotting nervously at her heels. She sweeps past Gakushuu and hones in straight on Gakuhou seated at the dining table.

“You bitch!” She shrieks. “You fucking animal! Bringing that monster into your school!”

Hiro steps forth. “Dear-”

“Hush,” she says to him, then turns back to her ex. “You absolute asshole, you-”

“Mom,” Karma interrupts. She glances at him briefly, purses her lips, then goes back to berating Gakuhou, who sits there and watches her impassively as he sips his tea.

A vase smashes.

Everyone whips around to the corner where the glass shattered, then to Gakushuu who threw it. He stalks up to Hanako with his arms crossed. “Shut up.”

Up close, Karma can see the resemblance. Gakushuu has the softness on his features that Gakuhou doesn’t have, and his nose curves up in the way that looks more like his mother.

"You don't get to talk to dad like that," Gakushuu says. 

Hanako bares her teeth. "You don't care he let that fucking, octopus thing become a teacher? Threaten the life of /my/ son?"

Gakushuu's shaking, at odds with the cool facade he always keeps. "You can take a look at the official statements released yesterday," he says coolly, "it was either that, with no harm coming to any of the students, or the immediate destruction of the earth."

She glares. "Don't get smart with me, boy. You don't know a thing about being a parent-"

"Besides loving a child more than another," Gakushuu replies.

Hanako's jaw drops. Karma exchanges a wide-eyed glance with Hiro, and even Gakuhou looks stunned. 

Whatever resolve Hanako had crumbles away. “Oh,” she says faintly, hand reaching out to touch Gakushuu’s cheek. “You’ve grown up.”

Gakushuu doesn’t pull away. He meets her melancholy gaze with a pained look.

“I’m sorry,” Hanako says, brushing Gakushuu’s fringe away from his forehead and kisses it lightly.

Gakushuu takes in a deep breath, then sighs. “No you’re not.”

Hanako smiles then, sadly. “You’re so much like your father.” It's not a denial. She kisses him again on the temple and says, “Bye, Gakushuu Asano.”

Gakushuu drops his head and shuts his eyes. Both he and Karma recognize it as what it is - a farewell, closure of sorts, a decade too late.

“Bye Hanako,” Gakushuu says, voice breaking.

Hanako starts crying then. She cradles Gakushuu’s cheek again and presses her forehead to his. “Call me mom.”

Gakushuu shakes his head.

Hanako laughs wetly. “So much like your father. So smart, too.”

She looks up, beckons Karma over with a hand. Brings them both close and hugs them together. “Both of you. First and second place, right? I’m proud of both of you. I’m sorry we never got-”

“Mom,” Karma says softly.

“I’m sorry I chose one of you over the other,” Hanako continues, sobbing, “I’m a horrible mother. I never should have-”

“Hanako,” Gakushuu says, just as quietly.

“You’re right,” she shakes her head. “Gakuhou.”

“Hanako,” Gakuhou says.

“You and your son sound like- nevermind. Just come here.”

“I-”

“Get your ass over here, Gakuhou.”

Gakuhou walks over stiffly, and Hanako hugs him just as awkwardly. But they both relax into it. Gakuhou presses his lips to the top of her head.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it work out.”

“I’m sorry too.”

“Didn’t know you knew how to apologize.”

“It’s been… a long time.”

“I suppose it has.”

Gakuhou lets go first. Hanako steps back gingerly. “Take care of Gakushuu.” She hesitates a little, then adds, “and Karma too.”

Gakuhou tilts his head in acknowledgement.

“Come on then Karma, let’s go home.” Hanako spins around and makes a graceful exit. Hiro and Gakuhou make polite goodbyes in the way that only ex and current lovers of the same woman could, and Karma brushes past Gakushuu in solidarity as he leaves.

In the car, Hanako’s staring out the window with a thoughtful silence. Then she says, “so are you going to Kunugigaoka High, Karma?”

“Yep,” Karma says.

“Hm,” she says. There is another silence that stretches, and then she says, “have fun then.”

He laughs then, picturing causing absolute chaos and teasing the hell out of his uptight twin brother, and playing antagonist in a school of nerds in a Gakuhou-run high school. Maybe he’ll draw Gakushuu to the dark side.

“I will,” Karma agrees.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay HAHA I don't know where this fic went. It was pretty much plotless and I don't know if I'm planning to go anywhere with it for now. I'll be back on Twice asap, I just really had to write this the moment it popped into my head or I would've lost the thread of words, you know how it goes, right? HAHA it was kind of weird to write this given that I always wrote the two as lovers thus far but I'm kind of okay with this? I think? Might make revisions in the future, I don't know.  
> See you guys!


End file.
